


The Hand in My Hand

by audreycritter



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Blüdhaven, Father Son Bonding, Gen, Prompt Reply, TW: Kidnapping, TW: Violence, briefcases full of money, every life matters, mentions of banking institutions, officer dick grayson-era, plans gone awry, post-jason's death pre-jason's return, the batfam does bonding weird, tw: gun violence, yes even those two
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-03 01:08:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17274245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audreycritter/pseuds/audreycritter
Summary: Dick offers himself in exchange for some hostages and it does not go as planned.





	The Hand in My Hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lurkinglurkerwholurks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurkinglurkerwholurks/gifts).



> A prompt reply for lurkinglurkerwholurks for cerusee's GoFundMe drive.
> 
> Inspiration and title from "Tightrope" from The Greatest Showman.

“Bruce?”

The violin-string tautness of the word stilled Bruce’s world around him. He pressed the phone more tightly to his ear while the mug he clutched stung his palm with heat.

“Dick? What’s—”

He stopped when angry voices poured over the line. There was a clean, metallic snap that Bruce would have known anywhere, a sound that echoed behind him in some of his darkest nightmares. The click of a gun clip being pulled, a bullet sliding into the chamber.

“Hey,” Dick said thinly. “I, uh…well. Are you free this afternoon? I’m with some guys that want some ransom money, if you can spare it. Come alone, no police, you know the drill.”

“Are you on speaker phone?” Bruce found himself standing with no memory of pushing the chair back. The gun was a threat, he reminded himself, a litany beneath the terror swarming throughout every nerve. He had to think. A weapon was a display of power and they’d put off using it in hopes of getting what they really wanted.

“No, I, I’m fine,” Dick said.

 _Clever boy_ , Bruce thought with a flicker of pride.

“How many hostages and how much do they want?”

“Four, no, I mean five million. Yeah, okay, okay, don’t get pushy it was a simple mistake. Having a 9mm pressed to your skull makes it a little hard to think.”

“Where, Dick?”

“First Public National Bank, 37 Alexander Place in Bludhaven. B. Please. Just you. Please don’t bring anybody else.”

That gave Bruce pause. In his head, he was already coming in from the roof with batarangs to knock guns out of slippery, panicky fingers. He knew what Dick was asking even if nobody else on the other end did.

“Dick, that’s…”

“Please, Dad. Just bring the money. I don’t want trouble.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Dick?”

“B?”

“It’s going to be okay.”

Dick didn’t especially like reassurances from Bruce these days— Bruce didn’t often find himself in the position to offer them, anyway. Dick was capable and certain and quick and rarely needed help anymore. Still, Bruce didn’t think that was the reason the line went dead halfway through the sentence.

Dick also never called him  _Dad_.

He gave Alfred a brief update while he packed the suit into its specialized case, tucked it in the trunk of one of his regular cars just as a precaution, and then drove with a lead foot the entire way to Bludhaven.

* * *

“You know who I am?” Dick asked, his gun raised and aimed. Five guns trained on the robbers were plenty so he slowly lowered his weapon in a show of goodwill.

The hostage the man was holding by the neck shivered, her teeth chattering from fear.

“A cop,” one robber said to the other, with a patronizing tone like it was a bad joke. His blank mask didn’t move.

The chatter of police radios and the shuffle of heavy boots on the marble floor were louder than they should have been. The few other hostages were crying.

“I’m Dick Grayson,” Dick said, taking another slow step forward. The hostage whimpered when the muzzle of the gun dug into her temple.

They were curious now, he could tell, looking at each other and then back at him.

“Bruce Wayne’s ward,” Dick said.

The entire room plunged into silence.

Four years ago he would have hated having to utter that fragment, sick of how it defined him and how people assumed they knew so much about him just from that— this scrap that barely could scratch the surface of what it  _meant_  and who Dick really was. Now, it slipped off his tongue with ease.

 _It’s more than a bargaining chip,_  he reminded himself.  _Bruce would tell you to use any advantage._

“Ward, huh,” one of them said. He was thinking about it, Dick could read it in the way his hand relaxed on his weapon. “What are you doing as a Blud cop? Seems to me like he might not be that interested in paying up for you if you’ve had to resort to this.”

“This is my way of giving back,” Dick said cautiously. He gave the hostage, who was now staring with open desperation at him, a friendly smile. “I like to help people. Bruce does, too. So why don’t we do this.”

“Grayson,” Amy hissed from behind him. He ignored her. She knew him well enough to know what he was doing and he wasn’t going to let her talk him out of it. This was the smart play.

“You give up the hostages. Take me. You can hold that piece to my head the whole time it takes him to drive here, if that makes you feel better. How much do you want?”

“Three million,” one of them snapped.

“That seems a little low,” Dick said, putting his gun on the floor. He slid it back to Amy with his foot and she swore at him. “How about four?”

“Yeah?” The one with the hostage in a chokehold nodded. “Yeah. Okay. But why offer us more?”

“You don’t think I’m worth at least four? Look at me,” Dick said. “I’m gorgeous.”

They both laughed— short barks of tense laughter, and the gun dropped from the hostage’s temple to wave him forward.

“Alright. Come on, you’re with me. We’re going to go hole up in that fancy office. Nobody move or breathe or Mr. Hotshot here gets one in the head for your trouble.”

The cold metal kissed the skin of his temple and held on, like a frigid leech. Dick gave a small wave to Amy.

“Single file,” the man said.

“Hey, hey,” Dick protested, keeping his voice easy. “Just me, okay? Let them go.”

It was hard now, to stay focused and keep the panic from cutting off his air. He was acutely aware in the moment of just how quickly things could go badly, more vividly than his calculated assessment from moments before when he’d considered his risk an obvious choice.

“I didn’t say that,” the man said. “You said that.”

Dick drew a breath in and let it out slow. He pulled himself to a small point and let his mind compress there. He was doing the right thing. Using Bruce, using himself, was the right thing to do.

“Okay, fair. You’re right. How about one, though? One for one? I’ll tell Bruce you asked for five.”

“One for you, kid, because you’ve got balls,” the other robber spoke. He flicked his semi-automatic rifle along the line of hostages. “Who we sending out? Your choice.”

Dick could hear the sadistic grin behind the mask. He fought the impulse to close his eyes and made himself instead think. He was the single pinpoint of purpose he’d drawn his mind into. What would Bruce do?

Teary, begging eyes locked onto him in sync.

“Who…” he had to clear his dry throat. “Who has kids?”

“Me,” one woman said, while a man said, “I do.”

“Ages,” Dick asked.

“Whoa, I did not authorize an interro—”

“Three,” the man said quickly, interrupting the robber.

“Nine and eleven,” the woman said, voice cracking.

“Him,” Dick said, ignoring the sick twist in his gut at the woman’s sob. It was a risk even hoping this data wouldn’t be used against them somehow.

“Go,” the robber said, with a jerk of his head toward the door. The man didn’t wait to be told twice— he took off running toward the police cars outside. He cleared the threshold with no sadistic shot fired after him.

Dick’s sweating palms stung when his fingernails pulled themselves back out of the calloused skin. He tried not to seem overly relieved.

One. He’d saved one so far.

One was better than none.

In single file, Dick and the rest were led into the loan office that fronted the vault. With a sense of dread, he realized the ceilings here were plaster— not the flimsy drop ceiling or towering glass roof of other sections.

One door out.

Hard ceiling.

A third robber in the corner, peeling himself out of the shadows with another high powered rifle.

“He took the bait,” he said.

“Like a fucking guppy,” the man with the gun to Dick’s temple replied. The leech bit deeper into his skin. “Now we make the call and wait for the Bat.”

“You’re sure he’ll come?” the second from the bank foyer asked.

“He always does for Wayne or anyone Wayne cares about. I’m telling you, he’s got the Bat in his damn pocket.”

Dick closed his eyes despite himself. He was an idiot. A predictable, heroic idiot. He’d waltzed right into this and now someone was holding a cell phone up for him to type in a string of digits.

_Oh no._

He made the call.

* * *

It took five minutes of arguing with the Bludhaven chief of police, a briefcase clutched in one white-knuckled hand, for Bruce to even get them to consider sending him in.

Dick’s partner, Amy Rohrbach, sided with Bruce and did a lot to help convince her Chief. Bruce kept his grip on the handle of the case while they forced him into a bulky Kevlar vest and put a wire on him and then he was walking into the quiet, empty foyer with a dozen guns at his back.

He tried not to think about that.

Dick. He was here for Dick.

It had taken every ounce of willpower to keep from disregarding Dick’s warning and coming in with the cape wrapped around him, the mask on his face— but Dick would have had a good reason for insisting.

“Hello?” he called, forcing himself to sound casual and not angry.

“Keep coming, Richie. Back here.”

The voice came from the loan office. The thick, tempered glass had been designed to give privacy to those inside. Now, it did exactly it’s intended job— the shapes within were distorted, flickering fuzzy edges sliding along the wall.

Slow and careful steps brought him to the threshold. He had one arm raised in surrender. He stopped just short of the door.

“How are we going to do this?” he asked. “What’s your exit plan?”

There was low arguing from inside and then the door swung open.

“You are,” the man said, a gun in Bruce’s face.

Beneath the Kevlar, under his button-up that was not the Batsuit, his heart stuttered. His face betrayed nothing, he was sure.

“We’re going to walk you and your pretty little boy out to our van,” the man said, calmly. “And if anyone so much as twitches, we’re going to kill one of you. We’ll decide which when we get there. Capiche?”

“Dick,” Bruce called into the room. With a breath, he stepped toward the gun. Then, his breath left him.

“Hey, B,” Dick rasped, from his seat on the floor. He had both arms behind his head and in the cable ties they’d used, one wrist was at a crooked angle and angry red. His lip was swollen and dried blood flecked one corner of his mouth and was smeared brown-burgundy beneath his nose. An eye was swelling shut.

“What the hell did you do to him?” Bruce growled, taking another step. The gun caught him in the chest, and he pushed against it anyway.

“He’s not the best at following instructions, but I’m guessing you knew that,  _Dad_ ,” the gunman said.

“I’m okay, B,” Dick said.

“That the cash?” another gunman asked. “At least we get paid.”

“It’s not too late,” a third said.

“Let them go,” Bruce said, taking in the hostages lined up along the wall. They looked terrified but physically unharmed. He could at least keep them that way. He looked at the gunman. “Let them go. And my boy. My estate’s attorney is authorized to meet ransom demands for twice this. Keep just me and you can triple your take.”

The gunman closest to him whistled. “Like father, Iike son. You know, he made the same offer?”

Dick forced a sheepish grin around a broken tooth. It didn’t reach his eyes— they met Bruce’s and there was something there genuinely frightened. What  _exactly_  was going on?

“Back door,” the gunman closer to Dick said. He hauled him up. “We’re going right now, two by two just like Noah’s fucking animals. Me and you, Handsome, my buddy and your dad, and Little John’s gonna take the case of cash.”

A hand tightened on Bruce’s arm and he had to shake the instinct to flip the man over.

The other hostages.

They were leaving them behind.

“It’s your lucky day,” the last gunman said to them, pulling the door closed. He raised his voice. “Count to sixty and you’re free. A second sooner and you get a bullet in the back.”

They waited in the hall by the rear exit and it was a full minute later by the wall clock that the hostages spilled out of the room and staggered for the door. They disappeared out of the foyer with shouts and hold fire cries, and in the same second the rear exit door was shoved open and Bruce and Dick hauled through toward the van.

Four hostages. Four lives.

Four people had made it out.

The cops standing guard at the back held their fire when they saw the gunmen with Bruce and Dick at gunpoint. Nobody moved while they climbed into the back of the gray van. One man started the engine after setting the case of cash down and then they started driving.

No one stopped them.

Bruce sat on the floor across from Dick, who had let his head thud backward against the van wall. His hands were still behind him.

“I’m moving to sit with him,” Bruce announced.

“Nah, I think you’re—”

“For Christsake, we’re unarmed in a moving van. I’m going to sit with my kid and check him out. He said he was fine on the phone.”

Bruce moved without waiting for permission. They didn’t stop him. He pressed his shoulder up against Dick’s and leaned his head down.

“How are you doing, chum?”

Dick’s voice was choked even when he laughed. “I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said. “They wanted you to send your friend.”

“Hey!” the gunman with Dick kicked him in the leg. Dick curled toward Bruce, who scowled but didn’t dare let himself do more.

So, it had been a trap. For Batman.

And then it clicked.

They were still waiting for Batman to come to get  _him_. Bruce could have laughed, but it would have been a dry and ugly sound, entirely without humor.

“M’sorry,” Dick said, his forehead on Bruce’s shoulder. “I fucked up.”

“No, Dickie,” Bruce said, watching their captors like a hawk while they watched him in return. “You saved four people, chum.”

“Five,” Dick said faintly. “They let one go for me.”

Bruce was worried about Dick’s head and how hard they’d hit him. He glared at the gunman closest.

“Cut off the cable ties. You broke his wrist. He’s not going to do much and you could leave it permanently damaged. When— not if,  _when_ — you are caught, I will make sure the court remembers that detail.”

“Fine.”

Bruce could practically hear the man rolling his eyes. A pocket knife was withdrawn and Dick winced when the ties were cut. He slumped against Bruce as soon as his arms were free to pull in front of him, one arm cradled against his chest. The kid seeking comfort was a role he was expected to play and for once Bruce was grateful for the excuse it gave them both. He wrapped his arm around Dick’s shoulders.

The vest was useless here or Bruce would have insisted they let them swap it from his body to Dick’s. They’d go for point blank headshot at this range, and Bruce had to close his eyes to keep from seeing the vivid red blood all over his dress slacks.

“You okay?” Dick mumbled against him.

“Fine,” Bruce said, working on evening out his breathing again before it was noticeable to more than Dick.

“How far, Boss?” The gunman driver pressed on the gas. From the motion of the van, Bruce guesses they’d climbed onto the interstate. They had to know the police would be following them, but he didn’t know how much the police would push without a clear visual.

“Take us all the way into Gotham,” the gunman closest to Bruce said. He reached out with his gun and nudged at the vest; the other gunman in the back stretched his arm out and with a flick of the pocket knife sliced the police wire clean in two.

Bruce hadn’t expected the poorly hidden wire to last as long as it had.

“The Fort Kane tunnel,” the gunman said to the driver. “You remember which access door? You let us out fast, and keep going. You’re on your own after that and your cut is forfeit if you lead anyone back to us.”

“Got it,” the driver said.

Bruce took advantage of their expectations to press a kiss to Dick’s forehead.

“We’ll be alright,” he said, because he was supposed to, because he was going to make sure of it. “How are you doing?”

“Mhmm,” Dick said, dazedly. “Just dandy.”

He should have worn the suit. He should have come in and taken the bullet to the chest and dealt with the broken ribs later.

Dick must hate him. They wouldn’t even be in this situation if Bruce weren’t such an easy and lucrative target. His name, it seemed, had brought nothing but trouble for years— no wonder Dick had spent most of his late teens trying to distance himself.

If anything, Bruce wasn’t going to let him suffer  _more_  for their connection. Just let them try again to touch his partner, his best friend, his  _boy_.

Damn the exposure or questions it would raise.

They wanted Batman?

They’d get Batman.

* * *

The pounding in his head matched every step from the tunnel access door all the way through the maze of passages and up to a service elevator that led to a terraced roof.

Penguin.

Oswald himself sat at a table with a milky white drink, his umbrella cane resting on the edge of his chair. He was cracking crab legs and dipping them in steaming butter and he did not look happy.

“Where,” he said, the second they stumbled into the twilight, “is the Bat.”

Dick’s arm throbbed in a way that made him feel like puking.

“He didn’t show, Boss. Maybe he can’t fly as far as Blud. We brought more bait though.”

“Bait,” Oswald hissed, glaring at them with that dead eye stare. He reminded Dick sometimes not of his chosen moniker, but of its prey— a fish, cold and lifeless out of water. “You brought  _Bruce Wayne_  here. How stupid, exactly, are you?”

“And five mil,” one of the gunman offered, sounding uncertain for the first time. “Wayne said his attorney could bring another fifteen.”

“Oh, so twenty million should be plenty to convince the Batman to simply…slit his own throat. I could have saved myself  _so_  much time if—”

Later, Dick would realize that the moment Oswald reached for his cane to stand up was the moment someone on a far off roof perceived the motion as a threat, but with his aching, muddled head there was no obvious correlation.

Oswald reached, mid-sentence, for the cane and there were twin  _pops_  in the air. The hand on Dick’s arm— the gunman— jerked and Dick whipped his head toward Bruce.

He was just in time to see Bruce full-body flinch, an unusual break in his iron self-control, while the face of the gunman on that side exploded into a pink cloud that settled wetly on their skin.

The two bodies hit the roof with a gurgling emptiness, twitching and then still. A loudspeaker boomed into the falling night air.

“This is the Gotham PD. Everyone put your hands up.”

Dick and Bruce raised their hands with everyone else and Dick bit back the bile that rose in his throat.

Seconds later, the roof was swarmed by the SWAT officers that must have just settled into position. Dick looked at Bruce, whose mouth was set in a grim line; it softened when Dick caught his eye.

“Guess we don’t need our friend after all,” Dick tried to joke.

“He should have shown up hours ago,” Bruce said firmly.

“Hey,” Dick said, as they were given permission to lower their arms. An EMT was peppering him with questions and he ignored it for another second. “We both made it. And the civilians. Thank you for coming when I called.”

“Of course,” Bruce said, his brow furrowing like Dick had just complimented him on breathing.

“No allergies,” Dick mumbled to the EMT’s insistent question. Was there a reason the woman’s voice was cutting in and out? Or that he felt so heavy all of a sudden?

Then a firm arm was around him, holding him up, and Bruce was answering her questions.

“M’Bruce.” Dick slurred to her with a smile. “He knows…e’erythin.”

The last thing he was aware of before passing out was the distinct sensation of someone wiping off his face with a cloth that felt a lot like shirtsleeve.

* * *

Dick woke suddenly, aware that something in the room had changed and not sure what. He blinked into the dim morning light that sifted through the cracked curtains. He had vague memories of being checked out at the hospital, of his arm being set, of being driven home by Alfred with Bruce next to him on the bench seat.

The memories solidified into more definite details but he couldn’t quite remember falling asleep— maybe it had been on a couch or while walking up the stairs.

A faint wheeze grabbed his attention, and oh— maybe this was what had woken him.

Bruce was in the chair beside the bed, bent over with his head in his hands. The raspy inhalations matched tremor running up and down Bruce’s tense shoulders under his thin tee.

“B?” Dick murmured. His own voice was hoarse.

There was a terse head shake and then silence while Bruce struggled for normal breaths. Dick sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed and Bruce held up a single hand to stop him.

With a forced exhale, Bruce sat up and back in the chair and stared blankly ahead.

“Bruce?” Dick ventured. He slipped out of the bed and crouched in front of Bruce. His arm was in a cast and it protested at the movement.

That distant gaze drifted down to his face, still far away and unfocused.

“Hm?” Bruce said.

“B,” Dick said again.

Bruce rubbed at his knee, at spots that weren’t there on his pajama pants. He scrubbed hard at his cheek and then his eyes settled on Dick again. He frowned.

“Dick. Why are you out of bed?”

“You were having some kind of flashback, I think,” Dick said softly. “You alright?”

Bruce swallowed. “Hn. I’m fine. Bed, chum.”

Because he knew he wouldn’t get anywhere else otherwise, and because his head still hurt, Dick complied. Bruce got up and disappeared into the bathroom. He emerged a minute later with flecks of water on his shirt and his skin bright with flush of cold water. He reclaimed the seat by Dick’s bed and offered a glass of water.

Dick took it and drained half, then set it down.

The gunshots. Right by their ears. Dick wondered how many scraps of nightmare Bruce had suffered over the past several hours, and if he’d even slept at all.

“I’m sorry, B,” Dick began. “I was just trying to use my advantage. I’m sorry I dragged you into that mess.”

Bruce gave a slight shrug. He was studying his clasped hands.

“I…” Bruce cleared his throat. “I’m sorry…my name…has brought you so much trouble. Use it as often as you need, Dick, it’s yours to use— but don’t…you’re not disposable, Dick.”

“You know the job has risks,” Dick said gently. This was dangerous territory on an emotionally fraught morning. “I accepted those. Both in and out of…the mask.”

“I know that,” Bruce snapped. “Don’t you think I know you’ve decided and I know I can’t stop you?”

There was choking quiet.

“Can we talk about this—” Dick began, as a truce.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said. “I’m…I’m not ready to lose another…another…”

His voice dropped to a whisper.

“Son. I’m not ready to lose another son, Dick. Maybe you had the right idea out of high school, the distance you wanted to keep, and I’d never ask you to—”

“No,” Dick said harshly. “No. I was a stupid kid. This, this is worth it to me. It’s more than just a tool. I love being your former ward as much as I love being the first…well, you know. I’m sorry I used it like that yesterday and put you in danger, too. It was yesterday, wasn’t it?”

Bruce gave a dry huff of a laugh.

“Technically,” he said.

“You didn’t sleep, did you?” Dick asked.

Bruce shook his head. Dick flicked the covers back.

“C’mon, grab a few hours. It’ll help keep me put.”

There was a deep yawn from Bruce while he obliged and slipped beneath the covers and wrapped Dick in his arms.

“You did good, Dick. Five people saved and you kept your head even in a trap.”

“Thank you for listening to me,” Dick said. “I don’t think…I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I’d been the reason someone took you down”

“Dick, if you were there to get out, nobody could stop me.”

“There’s the Bruce I know and love,” Dick teased, a lump in his throat. “See? That’s exactly why I’m glad I’m Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne’s Former Ward. Danger or not, it’s worth it.”

“Next time you want to use my name as a bargaining chip, wrap yourself in bubble wrap and Kevlar first,” Bruce said petulantly. “There’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”

Dick laughed and tucked his head against Bruce’s chest. “I’ll make a note,  _Dad_. Get some sleep.”

“Mmm. You, too,” Bruce said. “You sleep so I know exactly where you are, brat.”

“I think that’s fair for one more day,” Dick agreed. “Morning.”

“Morning.”


End file.
